She Dreams In Colors
by Calculated Artificiality
Summary: "She loves him, she don't want to leave this way."
1. Chapter 1

_"Waiting, watching the clock;_

_it's four o'clock, it's got to stop—"_

* * *

><p>Gillian Foster laid awake in bed, the covers of the down comforter pulled taut to her chin. She did her best to ignore the glow that came from the green numbers on the clock at the side of her bed. The digital readout told her the late hour and consequently where her husband had been.<p>

Alec was out doing lines off some mahogany conference table. She imagined the white powder lain out in a perfect straight little line, and the way Alec would lean over, pinch his right nostril and inhale sharply with his left. She imagined the residue still around his nose as he rubbed it, enjoying the exhilaration of it all.

He'd stumble into their bedroom, hours later, his eyes bloodshot, and he'd either be horny or hungry—she'd never been able to accurately predict which.

Sighing, she flipped over onto her side and stared at the numbers—3:47AM. The nights just seemed to get later and later, and it had been going on for months now. At least he didn't try to hide it from her—he'd given up insulting her intelligence after his first battle with the drug which happened exactly two years into their marriage.

She'd flipped when she'd found out that first time—_how could you, Alec_? She'd screamed at him, and they'd fought and yelled and he'd stormed out of the door and she'd been left alone with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She'd cleaned the whole house—twice, before he came back and said he'd get help. To his credit, he really did go to rehab. And she redecorated their entire house during the awful 14 months it took for him to finally kick the habit.

He'd brought her flowers that day and told her he was clean, finally, and that he wanted to start trying to have a child with her.

They made love three times that night, and Gillian couldn't help but see Alec as the boy she'd fell in love with way back in college—his geeky glasses, his rumpled clothes, the way he confidently talked about everything in class—and the way they'd debated those first few months of their relationship. The way he could talk about anything from biology to Tolstoy (his favorite, _and not just of the Russians_). Back then, they'd just sit in the lobby of their dormitory, she clad in her sweats, hair wild, sipping coffee—he in jeans and a wrinkled shirt, pushing his glasses up on his nose every time he felt truly passionate about a point. _Ah, but that's the metanarrative_. And that was the moment she fell in love with him.

She'd married him three months after graduation in a small ceremony, and he'd said the loveliest vows to her and even managed to press his shirt—although she did rather miss the wrinkles.

Gillian liked seeing Alec as that boy.

As the minutes ticked by and Gillian's ears strained to hear his car pull up in the driveway, she recognized that what his rehabilitation had allotted him, his recidivism had taken away completely—she knew she'd never be able to see him as that boy again, and the thought tore at her heart in a peculiar kind of way.

She hadn't been expecting the relapse—and to his credit, he didn't lie to her about it.

The first night he came in at 4:02 in the morning, he'd told her.

_Where have you been?_

_Getting high._

He'd said it so simply—and then added, _I'm sorry_.

She didn't yell; she didn't scream. She just silently grabbed him by the hand and ascended the stairs—and she slept soundly, holding him.

Two weeks later, she did her first line of cocaine. They were at home, talking casually, the television humming in the background and the words just somehow tumbled out of her—

"I want to try it." She'd said, suddenly, her voice quiet.

"What?" He'd asked, genuinely astonished.

"Coke." She said simply, "I want to try it."

Alec hesitated, trying to gauge whether or not she was serious. She nodded her head in the affirmative—and he shrugged, then went to go find the bag he'd hidden.

Gillian didn't miss the excitement that passed over his face—and she felt her stomach do a little jump, nervous about what would happen. It wasn't as though she hadn't thought long and hard about it. She loved Alec, after all, and she was curious about the illicit substance that held his attention in ways that she seemed unable to. She wanted to share the experience with him—if only to understand a little piece of him in a way she never had before. But, also, she realized, because she hoped that it would bring them closer together—that it could repair what she felt breaking between them.

She had been in bed the night after he told her he'd been using again and she could feel him slipping away. She could feel everything she'd worked so hard for slipping away—and she wondered if she would ever forgive herself if she didn't try everything little she could think of to save her marriage. Alec was the only man she'd ever really known—she'd fallen for him hard when she was young mainly because he was the first boy to ever pay serious attention to her. Gillian tried that night, but she couldn't imagine her life without Alec in it.

Alec had walked down the stairs, bag of freebase cocaine in hand. Smiling at her, Alec grabbed a book off the shelf. Gillian read a strange mix of exhilaration and apprehension in his smile, and she felt the same feelings begin in herself. Settling down in front of the coffee table, Alec set the book down and Gillian couldn't help but laugh when she saw it. Alec poured the cocaine deftly into four neat little lines and tentatively handed the hollowed out pen to Gillian.

She swallowed hard, and shook her head. He nervously shrugged and she watched as he put the end of the makeshift tube at one end of the line and snorted quickly, following with precision the path he'd made.

He sniffled, and rubbed his nose, and looked at her—gauging her reaction. She didn't really have one—she felt rather numb, actually. He held out the pen to her again, and she took it this time, never breaking his gaze.

She saw his pupils dilate and knew that it was as much from arousal as it was from elation of doing the drug. She should feel sickened by that, but she didn't. Instead, she smiled at him—a small sort of smile, and did as he had done, though not quite as adeptly as he had.

It burned her nose a little, and she wrinkled it and then watched as Alec leaned forward and kissed her hard on the mouth, tangling his hands in the mass of her hair. Breaking the kiss, he eased the tube out of her hand and leaned his head down again—

She followed him again, and one more time, twenty minutes after that to maintain the high. She felt euphoric and elated and she and Alec sat up talking about every deep thing they'd forgotten how to talk about since they got married and then they fucked three times—once on the coffee table—twice on the floor, and then they'd fallen asleep.

Gillian went to work the next day—hungover beyond belief, and she saw her business partner, Cal Lightman in the hallway.

"Oi, Foster," He had said, "Rough night?" Concern etched his brow, as he thrust a case file out at her.

"I'm fine, Cal." Was her reply, and she smiled at him as she took the case file and walked down the hallway.

He let it go. And she got endless looks from her employees that day—all perplexed at her disheveled appearance—after all, Gillian Foster rarely looked anything less than perfect.

No one guessed that she had been up until four in the morning doing lines of coke off an old copy of _Anna Karenina _with her husband of 18 years.

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><p>While nobody could guess at what Gillian had done the previous night (and if they were guessing, they were invariably <em>wrong<em>), for her part, Gillian hated herself the next day—when the weight of what she had actually done began to sink in. She sat at her desk and laid her head on her arm. She shuddered as the sobs began to wrack her body. She cried for a good fifteen minutes all the while thoughts of the boy her husband used to be passed through her head. When she stopped crying, she turned her thoughts to the girl she used to be—before Alec—before everything, really.

The impossibility of her situation struck her as funny and she laughed a little bit, the sound echoing through her empty office, her head still on her arm, forehead pressed down heavily into her forearm.

"Alright, love?" Cal asked from the doorway.

She didn't bother lifting her head up, just made a little noise that was meant to say that she was, indeed, alright.

Cal strolled into her office and sat in her chair. They sat in silence until Gillian finally got up and walked wordlessly out the door, grabbing her purse and jacket as she left.

* * *

><p>The second and last time she did cocaine came two weeks after that. This time, it was her husband's idea—he was restless, a quality that the upwardly mobile never truly shake, and tension at work was to blame.<p>

She wasn't ever really sure how they even got to that point—but it ended with her lying flat on her back, clad only in her bra and panties, as Alec poured the white powder into a neat little line on her abdomen.

She felt his breath on her skin and then felt the light pressure of him snorting the cocaine—when he was done, he kept his head lowered, his breath still on her abdomen.

"God," he breathed out, his pupils dilated, "You're beautiful, Gillian."

High for only the second time in her life, Gillian began to cry—Alec mistook her emotion for something it wasn't and began to kiss her passionately through her tears—and Gillian clutched at him, holding his head close to hers by grasping at the small hairs near the nape of his neck.

"So _fucking_ beautiful." He'd breathed, as he pulled away from her.

Gillian smiled, thankful that her husband couldn't read faces—she'd never felt uglier in her life.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

_"Tell him: 'take no more'—  
>She practices her speeches;<br>He opens the door, she rolls over,  
>Pretends to sleep as he looks her over"<em>

* * *

><p>It had been a month since Gillian let Alec snort cocaine from her bare skin in the middle of their kitchen, the pots from dinner still sitting on the stove and the half empty wine glasses sitting by the sink, waiting to be washed.<p>

The minutes ticked by, she still laid on her side, clutching the covers at her chest, her tiny hands holding onto them as though they meant something—anything—to her. She felt worry etch itself onto her face—it had been doing a lot of that lately and she sighed as she felt it crawl down into her stomach and begin to gnaw.

Thinking about her relationship with her husband made her physically ill—thinking about what she had done to try to grasp at the last wisps of her dying marriage made her even sicker, actually.

Quietly, she talked to the air—

"I can't take it anymore, Alec," she said softly, and she watched the peony colored walls as though she were waiting for them to embrace her the way she wanted him to and kiss her on her forehead the way she wanted him to. They just stared back at her, instead. "It's got to stop." She said, and she squeezed her eyes tightly as she felt the tears began to well—"Fuck." She breathed out, and she started over. "Alec," she tried—"I can't do this anymore." She tasted each word on her tongue and they were all more acidic than the ones previous: "Enough is enough." She said, mumbling in the dark. "Please stop." She felt the desperation beginning to run rampant within her and she stilled her hands, which had begun shaking, and tried to regulate her breathing—counting the breaths as they entered and then left her tired lungs.

Sighing, she flipped onto her back and crossed her arms behind her head—staring up at the ceiling, her thoughts assaulted her. _She missed him_. She did. And her stomach sank at the realization that she'd not be getting him back.

Her eyes were glistening as her words floated into the empty silence of their bedroom. "I need you to need me again."

Gillian had reached her breaking point, truthfully. She couldn't take being married to a drug addict anymore—she couldn't take the late nights, the early mornings, the always being alone even when she was with him. She couldn't take any of it—and she was counting the ways to tell him, debating various approaches when she saw the light change briefly in the room—it was thrown into a dusty light, the shadows shifted and her heart constricted right before her eyes were plunged into darkness again.

Sighing, she heard Alec's unsteady key in the lock—she strained to her it click out of place and then her stomach tightened as she heard the door close. She heard him toss his keys on the table, the clanging noise floating up the stairs directly into her ears.

Gillian felt a particular sense of dread as she heard his heavy footsteps press down into the carpet as he ascended the stairs. She heard him pause in front of their bedroom door, and when she saw the doorknob turn slowly Gillian turned over, presenting her back to the door and staring at the clock.

As Alec entered the room, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly and tried to control her laborious breathing. She heard him walk into the room—his footsteps nowhere near quiet—and stop. She could feel his eyes on her, and her blood pumped through her veins hard as she felt with absolute precision the path of his eyes.

Gillian heard him kick of his shoes and unbuckle his belt—he pulled his pants down and quietly took off his shirt. She felt the weight of his body as he crawled into bed next to her wearing nothing but his boxers and his glasses. She heard him hum slightly, as though he was deep in contemplation, and then she felt his gaze return to her form and Gillian felt him rustle beside her.

She concentrated on breathing—in and out, in and out—even as the bed began to rock slightly and a crude noise assaulted her ears. Her eyes opened, but she was careful not to stir, focusing on the clock that read 4:52AM. She heard the noise beside her and she watched as the minutes ticked by. Gillian marveled at how slowly the minutes—sixty seconds filled with nothingness—ticked by when all you were doing was waiting for them to pass.

A wave of nausea passed over Gillian as she heard Alec's breathing quicken—and on his sharp intake of breath, followed by three more in rapid succession, she squeezed her eyes shut again. Her stomach only untied the knot it had made for itself when she finally felt him still beside her. She stole a glance at the clock 5:06AM—and another when she finally heard Alec's breath take on a particular rythym, indicating that he was finally asleep—5:14AM taunted her as she let the tears that had been welling in her eyes for more than twenty minutes fall silently.

Her pillow dampened beneath her and she shook her head slightly, wondering what she had ever done in this life or one previous to end up lying awake at such an hour listening to her cokehead husband—the first boy she ever loved—masturbate next to her, high out of his mind.

* * *

><p><em>TBC<em>


	3. Chapter 3

"She lies and says she's in love with him—

Can't find a better man."

The next day was a Friday and Alec was at the office. Early in the morning, Gillian sat in a chair downstairs clad in her flannel pajamas sipping coffee out of a pink mug she'd had since college. She had her legs pulled up to her chest and she was holding the phone to her ear as she listened to her mother ramble on about some woman at church.

Gillian's eyes were tired and she was thankful that her mother couldn't see her as they carried out their weekly ritual. For nearly as long as she could remember now, she and her mother had conversed on Fridays—her mother called her at 8am sharp and they both rehashed the underpinnings of the week.

That particular Friday, however, Gillian found herself rather unable to concentrate on the conversation at hand. Instead, Gillian issued all of the appropriate responses—responding only when spoken to and occasionally asking for more detail. When her mother finally finished retelling her story, one that Gillian could not recreate to save her life, her mother's voice took on a particularly concerned tone.

"Gill, what's wrong, honey?" She asks, and Gillian could practically see her mother's eyebrows furrowed in question.

Sighing into the phone, Gillian stirs her coffee—"Nothing, mom, I'm fine." She says, finally, although she doesn't really believe that her mother will believe her or that her mother will let it go.

"I know you better than that, dear." Her mother said over the line and Gillian smiled in spite of herself. Despite any misgivings or grudges she may have once held against her mother, in the past few years they had grown exponentially closer as mother and daughter and Gillian relished the feeling. "You might feel better if you talk about it."

Gillian laughed inwardly at this—everyone always had this idea that talking about things made them easier, somehow. Gillian had found, however, that that was rarely the case. Still, she didn't want her mother to have to worry about her.

Gillian pinched the bridge of her nose and shut her eyes tightly, she said quietly into the phone, "It's Alec." Because she anticipated her mother's question, she rushed on, "We're having…problems." She finished.

Gillian could hear her mother's intake of breath and she imagined that her mother's eyes were shut tightly and her body was held completely still as she asked her daughter, "What sort of problems?"

Gillian deflected as best she could, and then she told a little white lie to her mother. She couldn't, of course, tell her mother the real root of the marital problems she was having with her husband. Her mother would be distressed and upset and she would grow to hate Alec, and Gillian simply could not handle that.

Finally, after a long conversation and short question and answer period, Gillian hung up the phone with her mother and she sat in the chair, hugging her knees to her chest, silently sipping the coffee she'd made for herself which had gone completely cold by then.

She sat there for forty five minutes before finally rising and setting her mug in the sink, heading upstairs and taking a brief solace in the stream of the hot shower that poured onto her back and made her muscles feel less tense than they had in ages.

* * *

><p>Gillian arrived to work that day an hour and a half late, her hair thrown up into a pony tail, her makeup barely painted on. She didn't quite bother because she knew, quite honestly, that there would be no hiding the black circles that had developed under her eyes.<p>

As her heels clicked down the corridor of The Lightman Group building, she found herself holding her breath hoping she wouldn't run into anyone—and specifically hoping that she wouldn't run into Cal. She was saying a silent word of gratitude to whomever was in charge of such things as she reached the threshold of the door to her office. As soon as the gratitude was complete, she heard a voice call out from behind her.

"Oi, Foster!" Came the British accent, "Just come in whenever you feel like it these days, do you? Must be nice." Cal said.

When Gillian finally turned to face him, his smile fell and he wished he could take the words he'd said right back into his mouth. His face was a study in concern; hers was a study in many things—sadness chief among them.

"Alright, Foster?" He asked, knowing the answer.

Gillian simply stared at him. She opened her mouth to lie to him—she had an 'I'm fine, thanks' poised and ready on her tongue, but she considered her fatigue which she was beginning to feel in her bones, and she decided that she just didn't have the effort to lie to anyone, least of all Cal Lightman.

Instead, she pursed her lips together tightly, and shook her head in a manner that would have been nearly imperceptible to anyone but Cal.

Cal's face flooded with deeper concern and he ushered her into her office, closing the door behind them. He took her by the arm and guided her to a chair, having her sit down.

"What is it, love?" He asked, as he perched himself on the arm of the chair across from her.

She sighed and bit her lip. The silence was heavy and she wasn't sure she was ready to make this confession—"It's Alec." She said finally, and she watched Cal's face darken as the air became even heavier between them with her husband's name escaping her lips.

"What's he done." It was an odd tone with which Cal asked the question—it wasn't even a question so much as a statement.

Gillian wanted to deflect—she wanted to ease around the subject like she had with her mother earlier in the day, but she realized, suddenly, that she couldn't—didn't really want to, actually. In truth, she didn't quite care what Cal Lightman thought of her husband, and so she gripped the chair with both of her hands and she told Cal what had happened. She told him everything—the whole bitter truth, and when it was done rushing out of her, she sat in silence, refusing to meet his gaze.

Cal observed her quietly, watched as she tucked an errant strand of hair behind her ear and swallowed.

Finally, without looking at him, she spoke again, "I don't know what to do." She said, her voice ominous—"What do I do, Cal?" She asked, still not meeting his gaze—her voice was quiet.

Cal folded his arms over his chest and considered her—he was momentarily at a loss for words. He ran his right hand over his face and squeezed his eyes shut tightly, "Well," He said, "I guess that depends."

Gillian looked at him then and furrowed her brow in confusion, "Depends on what?" She said, her voice barely a whisper.

"Depends," Cal said with a slight shrug, "On whether or not you love him." He said, his eyes boring into hers. "Are you in love with him, Gill?"

The question took Gillian by surprise, and she found that her mouth was hanging open as her mind rushed through a myriad of emotions, all of which passed onto her face. Cal watched as each one settled on her features for a millisecond before a new one scooted in and took up residence—he read them all as Gillian tried to sort out her own thoughts.

She closed her mouth and then opened it again, "I—" She faltered, unprepared for the question, "Am I…" She stumbled once more before finally looking at Cal, "Yes." She lied, her voice soft.

Cal knew—he could tell, of course he could tell. But he said nothing, he simply tilted his head to the side, squinted at her momentarily and tried to keep the sadness out of his voice when he finally spoke, "Well, then," He started, rising from his leaning position and heading toward the door, "There you have it." He said as he swung the door open and walked into the hallway, closing it gently behind him leaving Gillian alone with her thoughts and the heavy air that their conversation had left behind.

And, Gillian thought, leaving her alone with her lie.

* * *

><p><em>tbc<em>


	4. Chapter 4

_"She dreams in color, she dreams in red—_

_Can't find a better man."_

* * *

><p>Her dreams have only two tenors. They are colored either with terror or with hope that has long since registered futile.<p>

The first dream has her sitting by a fireplace in the middle of winter. Outside, the snow is falling heavily and the quietness that surrounds her gives her an odd sense of peace—an odd sense of comfort. She's sitting by the hearth and inside burns a fire.

In the waking hours, she understands that fire is not usually so red—but in her dreams, it is the predominant color, and she stares into it for what seems like an eternity feeling nothing but an odd sense of peace. Suddenly, she is startled from her reverie from a different type of warmth—a man's arms around her. They grip her by the shoulders and spin her around into an embrace. She feels safe as they glide around to her lower back and the palms press into her spine, massaging her softly there.

She laughs throatily as the man pulls her into the middle of the living room that they have somehow come to share (the ring on her finger is an indication of exactly how as it sparkles in the dim light) and rocks her slowly back and forth to the soft jazz music wafting throughout the entire house. His fingers are gentle as they clasp her hand and dance her around—she rests her chin on his shoulder—he's slouching down slightly, swaying softly to the music. As he whispers the lyrics into her ear, she smiles, her eyes focusing on the one red wall behind him—an array of family photos cleverly arranged, the blacks and whites complementing the reds in a way that suggests incredible lightness.

She inhales his scent as she feels his breath on her neck and she revels in the sound and feel of him—of everything that surrounds her until a loud cry comes from a distant room and they both stop what they're doing and laugh. He grabs her by the hand and they go down the hallway into the nursery and she rushes to her child clad in red pajamas screaming—and as she lifts him, the man joins her and she sings the lyrics of the jazz song in her son's ear before the man takes the child into his own embrace whispering "shhh" as he begins to rock him. And then, smiling, he takes her hand in his, and he squishes their baby boy in between them and they sway back and forth until the child falls asleep again.

The man grabs her hand and leads her back into the living room, the hearth still burning brightly, and begins dancing with her again until she floats into consciousness and mourns the loss of contentment.

When she recalls that dream, she finds it funny that she cannot recall the man's face—she never sees it clearly, not truly, anyhow—and yet, she absolutely knows who he is. She would know him blind.

The second dream begins and ends in a bathtub. She's sitting there, the light surrounding her harsh and heavy as she soaks into the lukewarm heat of the claw foot tub. There are no bubbles—no oils, not even a pillow to support her back and head.

She crosses her legs and submerges her body thoroughly—her hair floating up and out and away from her causing a peculiar sensation at her roots. She inhales sharply and then exhales again, enjoying the way the water moves over and around her body, rippling outward.

Suddenly, she sits her head up, slightly, looking down at the rest of her body. Her hair, heavy, plasters itself to the skin on her back, and she nearly shivers at the sensation of air hitting her shoulder blades. There is no pain, which is why it confuses her when she sees the red.

It starts in little spurts—pooling in the water, making it cloudy as it spreads like a thin web into the hot water. She thinks she should panic—but she doesn't, not yet. Instead, she watches in awe as the blood floats away from her, toward the end of the bathtub. When it has broken apart and scattered so completely, she watches as more blood appears—

And she thinks _this is what a heart breaking must feel like_, because suddenly she's surrounded by blood and her mind registers what's happening, but she can't connect with it—not yet, anyway. It's not long before the water is completely red and she knows she should feel scared—that it's not a normal sight. Instead, she thinks idly that there shouldn't be this much blood, really. She thinks that it was only two weeks and there shouldn't be _this much_.

The red burns her eyes as it surrounds her body and she is oddly paralyzed. She sinks back down into the water, feeling her hair float up like it did before, and she closes her eyes but then opens them again, oddly drawn to the red hue surrounding her, sloshing up onto the white sides of the bathtub.

She is horrified—but she can't react. She wants desperately to pull the stopper and rinse herself off, but she can't because her mind can't work yet, it just keeps repeating _this is all that's left_, and when it's gone, she knows it's over, so she just sits there submerged in blood that her own body expelled.

She sits there for an hour until she finally sits up and crosses her legs so that she's sitting Indian style in the bathtub, her shoulders hunched slightly over as she pulls the stopper on the drain. She listens as the water is sucked down into the pipes and she watches the red thin out as the water level lessens until finally the last red swirl circles the drain. All that's left is the stain on the tub that a cursory rinse will take care of. She thinks she should be horrified when she registers that the water dripping off her hair is tinged red—but she watches each droplet land on the porcelain white of the tub as she hugs her knees and bends her head forward.

The drops from her hair come _one, two, three, four, five, six_, and on the seventh, she cries.

Sobs wrack her body until she finally wakes up.

So, she either wakes up from a dream that never was—or from a dream that is a flashback—and the only thing the two have in common is that when she wakes up, one of two things happens.

She either wakes up alone—the expanse of her bed holding her tiny fragile body like a void, the cold sheets caressing her body and offering no comfort as the images from the dream inundate her psyche.

Or she wakes up to her husband sound asleep next to her—his steady breathing filling the room as she watches his chest rise and fall, his face passive and peaceful, unaware of the torture she relives in any given form each and every night.

Sometimes, the dead weight of his arm is across her back and she tries to struggle out of it for a minute or so before finally giving up and turning her head to watch the minutes tick by on the clock, instead.

In those quiet moments, she thinks of him.

* * *

><p>TBC<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

_"She loved him—_

_She don't want to leave this way."_

* * *

><p>Gillian was standing in the middle of her laundry room surrounded by pale blues and turquoises when she finally reached her breaking point. She was folding laundry—their laundry—when she came to a pair of Alec's pants. She folded them over, and she heard a soft noise as something fell out of the pocket.<p>

Curious, Gillian set the folded pants on the dryer and then bent down to see what had fallen. She held it up in front of her face and she recognized the white powder in the translucent bag. She saw the neutral polish on her nails in stark contrast with the illicit substance in the bag, and at once she was horrified, furious and sad.

Her mind wandered back to the first time she and Alec had made love. Her roommate had gone home for the weekend and Alec had come over to her room to watch a movie and discuss literature. They'd been together for three and a half months and they hadn't really discussed sex. During the movie they'd been watching, some awkward bumbling comedy, Gillian had begun to watch him out of the corner of her eye. She'd seen him nervously push up his glasses—she saw his palms flat against his jean clad thighs, and she smiled to herself.

Five minutes later, she'd begun to kiss him—and he was awkward and sweet as they took things further and further until they'd made love on her bed. Alec had been only her second lover—and although she knew it was awkward and nowhere near the best sex in the world, she had cried afterward. She hadn't learned to read faces back then, of course, but she could tell by the look on Alec's face—he loved her. And so she cried.

She tried to hide the tears at first, but he reached out his unsteady arm and his fingertips lightly brushed her shoulder. She smiled at him, even through her tears and assured him that she wasn't sad—_I'm just overwhelmed_—she'd said, sniffling. He laughed, then, and pulled her into his chest, wrapping his pale arms around her fragile body.

No one had ever held her with such tenderness, and she sighed into his chest and wrapped her arms back around him in an embrace. He'd placed a kiss to her temple and tightened his grip—"I love you, Gillian." He'd said, not for the first time in their relationship. His voice was quivering, and she didn't want to look in his eyes to see the emotion welling there.

She tucked her head deeper into his chest, and she felt him shiver when she spoke against his chest as she brought a hand around to play with the light hair that grew there. "I love you too, Alec—" She said it for the very first time.

Alec had smiled and adjusted his glasses again before leaning down to kiss her on the lips—and they'd made love again. She'd suggested he take his glasses off—sometimes they would get fogged up, sometimes they'd be off kilter on his face and she had to bite her lip from keep laughing—

She never forgot the way her furrowed his brow and looked at her tenderly before shaking his head saying, _"_I want to _see _you, Gill."

And so she _had _loved the boy who wanted to share everything with her.

18 years later, standing in her laundry room holding a bag of cocaine between her thumb and index finger, she began to shake. Opening the bag, she poured the content onto Alec's pants and went upstairs.

She grabbed the stepladder, pulled her suitcase down from the hall closet, and set it unceremoniously onto the bed she and her husband shared. She felt rage overtake her and she began ripping her clothes off the hangers and throwing them onto the bed, one by one—then she stalked over to the hall closet and grabbed another suitcase and picked up her most important pairs of shoes and set them into the suitcase. Finally, she grabbed an overnight bag, huffed into the bathroom and swept every toiletry she had into the bag, zipping it closed furiously.

As she surveyed her clothing strewn about the bed, she felt the anger dissipate at the same time she felt a wave of indescribable sadness pass over her. Sighing, she fought back the tears that pricked at the back of her eyes as she walked back over to the bed and began picking up her clothing, folding it one by one and setting it gently in the suitcase.

Her hands fumbled with the zipper, quaking with the weight of her decision, but she finally managed to pull it slowly shut. She carried each of the bags downstairs and into her car before she walked back into the living room.

She sat there for an hour just thinking—her mind wandering back and forth between Alec then and Alec now and wondering if anything could have saved their marriage.

Gillian thought that he should have been the one to leave—but, in truth, she didn't really care about the house, about the material things surrounding her. She never really had.

In the quiet of the afternoon, she sat with herself, listening softly to her thoughts—As she finally rose to retrieve a yellow post-it note and a ballpoint pin from the junk drawer in the kitchen, she heard a thought speak up, _you owe him more than this, Gillian_, it said.

On any other day it would have given her pause. _You're right,_ she would have said—but that day was different—she laughed bitterly and the thought passed through her head _what about what he owes me_. Putting pen to paper, she effectively left her husband by placing a yellow post-it note on the hallway mirror—the antique one he had bought her for their eleventh anniversary and which he had helped her hang six months later one peaceful Saturday as a blanket of snow covered the ground outside.

She didn't stay to see his reaction—she didn't stay to watch him shatter the mirror with his fist and then dig furiously through all of his belongings looking for the coke she had scattered on his freshly washed and folded pants.

Instead, she just wrote in harsh black ink against soft yellow in elegant script:

"_I loved the Pilgrim soul in you—_

_Goodbye, Alec."_

Knowing he would understand the reference, she smoothed her fingers over the note against the mirror, walked out of the house they'd bought together across the threshold he'd carried her over into the afternoon sun.


End file.
